BBA New Currents

Edition 1 - Zusammen: Let's Go

Artists

Seb Agnew // Arthur Bauer // Ruth Brenner // Paul Brouns // Sophie Dumaresq // Julia Fullerton-Batten // Natasa Galecic // Michael Gatzke // Carlotta Guerra // Takeo Hirose // Beate Köhne // Tuomas Korkalo // Anton Lefabi // Ming Lu // Jean-Baptiste Monnin // Adriane Morard // Gloria Oyarzabal // Martin T Raggio // Cesare Reggiani // Geza Ricz // Soji Shimizu // Jürgen Sobkowiak // Astrid Verhoef // Jasna Vukos // Cate Wind // Elizabeth Withstandley

Curated by Emily Dickinson

BBA New Currents is a recurring format featuring the gallery’s newfound talents. We find many of our collaborating artists through our international open calls. This series highlights selections of fresh and exciting positions. Let’s connect, communicate and discover.

Zusammen: Let’s Go synergises a diverse group of creatives in the spirit of new beginnings. 26 international artists are showing one work each in a variety of media and a wide spectrum of content. The selection of artworks allows for the discovery of unexpected relations.

Included are works from Amsterdam based Astrid Verhoef, whose photography contains highly staged scenes that verge on the surreal, placing individuals and objects where they don’t seem to belong. Yugoslavian born artist Geza Ricz’ paintings explore the relationship between figuration and abstraction, using harsh blocks of vibrant colour over figurative lines and UK based artist Ruth Brenner who’s sculptural practice is based on intuitive material exploration and combination, studies ideas of the bodily.

Find out more about all included artists:

Seb Agnew

Lives and works in Hamburg, Germany

Education:
Audiovisual Media (B.Eng), Stuttgart, Germany
Vocational Education (M.Ed., B.Sc), Hamburg, Germany

Within staged and often dreamlike sceneries, he explores the human psyche and our modern society. Disorientation, momentary solitude and lonesome reflection are recurring themes within Seb’s conceptual body of work. His images are strongly characterized by elaborate set design, distinctive lighting and carefully arranged composition. In order to create his surreal, mysterious and cinematic settings, Seb transforms whole rooms or builds his locations completely as miniature sets in which he later integrates his life-size models.Today, Seb is excited to be able to work independently as a photo artist and to teach aspiring photographers at the “Vocational School for Media and Communication” in Hamburg, Germany.

Arthur Bauer

Born in Kazakhstan, currently based in Mannheim, Germany

Education:
Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim ( Political Science, Sociology, and Psychology, Master in 2011 )

Before devoting himself to photography, he was working in the field of film. Scenic work gave room for experimentation. The documentary format trained the observational gaze.

As a social scientist, he is interested in how context affects people and how people shape their environment. Photography encapsulates this relationship, providing a glimpse into the world of thoughts and emotions. For him, photographs are like frames from a cinematic scene that inevitably make you wonder what just happened or what will happen next.

Ruth Brenner

Born in Scotland, lives and works between Surrey and Sunderland

Education:
Practice-led PhD, University of Sunderland, 2017- present
MA Ceramics, University of Sunderland, 2015 - 2017
Master of Fine Art, Newcastle University, 2010 - 2012
BA (Hons, First Class) Fine Art, Northumbria University, 2007 – 2010

Brenner’s practice is intuitive based on material exploration and the bodily, both physical and mental, act of making. The influences of corporeality are central to her practice as the work has a direct relationship to her bodily dimensions; physical ability; sensory awareness and her relationship with the material. Making is, therefore, inextricably linked with the outcome which is a visual record of cognitive processes. The work plays with boundaries: industrial versus domestic; masculine versus feminine. It also touches on natural science and the study of matter by exploring the nature of materials through observation and experimentation.

Brenner’s practice covers a diverse range of materials and processes. The materials include – clay, metals, rubber, resins, waxes, human hair, wood and various other materials. The processes include – ceramics, welding, turning, casting and experimental investigations.

Paul Brouns

Lives and works in Almere (near Amsterdam), Netherlands

Education:
Academy of Fine Arts, Tilburg, Netherlands (1985 – 1990)

Observing the urban world, he is attracted by the abstract, rhythmic poetry of buildings. Available in limited editions, his work has been exhibited worldwide and sold to collectors, ranging from Tokyo, Seoul and New Delhi, to New York, London and Amsterdam.

In the series "Urban Tapestries" façades are captured frontally, filling the entire composition. Because of their simplicity and shallow depth, attention is drawn to rhythm, color and light on the surfaces. Its counterpart is the "Perspective Play" series. In these works visual depth and converging lines of perspective are used to fill the image plane with repeating elements. In both series sometimes photographic images are manipulated. Expanded surfaces and enhanced feelings of scale give the work a hypnotic attraction.

Sophie Dumaresq

Lives and works in Canberra, Australia

Education:
The Australian National University School of Art and Design, Canberra, Australia 2018 - 2021
Speos, International School of Photography, Paris, France 2011 – 2013

Sophie is an artist working in new media robotic arts and photo media in addition to large and small-scale sculptural installations. Her work explores symbiotic cycles of consumption, destruction and creation demonstrating how as a species we relate, show empathy and evolve with and within our surrounding environment.

Julia Fullerton-Batten

Born in Bremen, Germany, lives and works in London, UK

Education:
Berkshire College of Art & Design, Reading, UK, 1990-1992

Julia Fullerton-Batten is a worldwide acclaimed and exhibited fine-art photographer. Her body of work now encompasses twelve major projects spanning a decade of engagement in the field. Julia’s use of unusual locations, highly creative settings, street-cast models, accented with cinematic lighting are hallmarks of her very distinctive style of photography. She insinuates visual tensions in her images, and imbues them with a hint of mystery, which combine to tease the viewer to re-examine the picture, each time seeing more content and finding a deeper meaning. Fullerton-Batten has won countless awards for both her commercial and fine-art work, and is a Hasselblad Master. She was commissioned by The National Portrait Gallery in London to shoot portraits of leading people in the UK National Health Service. These are now held there in a permanent collection.

Nataša Galečić

Works and lives in Hannover, Germany

Education:
Master ’s of Fine Arts in Studio Art, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA, 2013
Bachelor ’s of Fine Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, Serbia, 2010

Trash is the ultimate lens of our lives, our priorities, our failings, our secrets and our hubris. In our desire to break free from geographical constrains, to push out into space, to reach out for the stars, we have turned our geographical fabric into a plastic monster that is threatening to swallow our planet. Nataša 's work pays equal tribute to the issues of overconsumption, overpopulation, and pollution, which are all a part of a much bigger question: How to break out of the prison of our geography? By converting piles of discarded items (everyday objects, gadgets, e-waste, direct marketing mail, etc.) into a topographic-like urban or celestial landscape, Nataša creates narratives that situate the viewer in two places at the same time - inside and outside of the observed place. The work thus shifts between many perspectives and many ways of seeing, and makes room for multiple vectors of meaning, visibility, and form.

Michael Gatzke

Lives and works in Köln, Germany

Education:
Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Alanus Hochschule, Alfter, 2018
Visual Arts – Painting, Alanus Hochschule, Bonn, 2014
2. State examination in law, Düsseldorf, 1985

Michael Gatzke is primarily a 21st century painter. "He fell out of time"? Because everything has already been shown on the screens, the representatives of new media and participatory approaches are today (rightly) artistic blockbusters. Does the "exhausted art form" of painting mean anything other than shrugging? Nevertheless, or should it be said for this reason, Michael Gatzke is fearless, even seeming to be grateful for his connection with all the old and new painterly princes. And here he finds his own position and strengthens it.

Carlotta Guerra

Born in Italy, based in Los Angeles, USA

Education:
Contemporary art and cinema, University of Bologna, Italy.

Carlotta’s work revolves around an intimate and personal exploration of life -its energy, delicacy, playfulness and mystery. She seeks to find moments of amazement in her familiar - sometimes domestic - world, in views that she feels convey a transcendent quality of wonder, an allusion of the vastness of life. Nature, ordinary scenes of her family life, her childhood haunts and investigations of her subconscious influences are Guerra’s main themes.

Takeo Hirose

Born in Kyoto, Japan, lives and works in Chiba, Japan

Takeo Hirose started studying photography in earnest in 2011 when Japan suffered from the huge earthquake disaster.

Through the earthquake he understood that the beautiful sceneries are not eternal but actually very fragile, and noticed the importance of taking photos of the Japanese beauty. His production concept is to express the world of traditional Japanese paintings and ink paintings with modern Japanese sensibility and photo technology.

For the past few years he has produced the works with a motif of bamboo, which can be associated with Japan.

Beate Köhne

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
Magister Artium (M.A.) in German studies, biology and psychology, Bielefeld University, 1995
Advanced skills in drawing and acryl- and oil painting, 2011

Beate‘s paintings seem to be about nature. But it is natural processes and energies that are at the core of her work, not the desire for a true-to-life image. Painting layer for layer, she creates a complex system of movement and structure, nurtured by light and color. Her intense use of white, be it mixed or pure, creates an airiness, which is supported by the partly raw canvas.Her work involves the viewer as part of what is going on on the canvas – the dynamics and changes of all things living.

Tuomas Korkalo

Lives and works in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland

Education:
Art School, Imatra, Finland, 2008

Korkalo paints, draws and creates art installations. The abstract and geometric forms that Korkalo employs on canvas are evocative of early 20th century aesthetics as seen in the Bauhaus and Russian avant garde movement for example. Unlike the Bauhaus aesthetics, he implements watercolour -like technique in his art that adds a complementary lightness to his works. In these works the geometric and colourful compositions, employed on the canvas by the artist, function by themselves, creating a comforting feeling derived from the pureness of form and symmetry. Korkalo masters both, solo and team work, and he also works widely in various international and interdisciplinary projects. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad since 2000. Tuomas Korkalo is a member of Finnish Painters´ Union and Artists´ Association of Lapland.

Anton Lefabi

Graduated in architecture from La Cambre-Horta, Brussels, and currently works and lives in Vienna, Austria

The work of European artist Anton Lefabi is centered on repetition, obsession, sacrifice and irony. It is essentially based on a conceptual modus operandi which manifests itself in various thematic work series. One of them develops the pathos-free obsession concerning the events and consequences of 9/11. The Matière series - another long-term project - deals with the artistic and philosophic examination of time and temporality. For Anton Lefabi, the suitable form of expression is defined by the idea's inherent mindset - be it drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, performance, photography or something else.

Ming Lu

Born in China, lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
Royal College of Art, London, UK, 2018
London College of Communication, London, UK, 2016

Ming Lu’s works include photography, installation, performance, and more traditional media – porcelain and embroidery. Her recent works play on the tension between contemporary art and traditional Chinese craftsmanship. As Made-in-China mass production became a global industrial phenomena, the artist works closely with the handicraft that is known to be slow, inaccurate, time and labor consuming, almost forgotten but are deep-rooted. Humorously employing symbols and figures from myths, legends, prehistorical culture, and from her own biography alike, Ming Lu’s works reflect her cultural identity, which combines enduring attachments to China, the country of her birth and to Europe, where she studied art.

Jean-Baptiste Monnin

Born in Besançon, France, lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
Media Art School, Chalon-sur-Saône, France, 2007-2010
Special Design, Claude-Nicolas LEDOUX Besançon, France, 2002-2005

Jean-Baptiste Monnin works mostly with drawing, challenging this traditional medium by exploring its fragility and sensitivity. Inspired by architecture and science, his attention focuses on details. Structured or uncontrolled, these details are depicted through abstract compositions. Implementing a long and rigorous process that involves the use of various media, he experiments with notions of perspective, scale and relief. He likes interpreting phenomena beyond the human eye and disorientating the viewer. He blurs the lines, creating a universe that questions our perception of the world.

Adriane Morard

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
2017-2014, BA Fine Arts, Bern University of the Arts, Bern, CH
2007-2003, Multimedia Conception, Ecole Romande d’Arts et Communciation (ERACOM), Lausanne, CH
2003-2002, Preparatory school, visual arts, Céruléum, Lausanne, CH

Adriane Morard takes interest in altered ways of operating in physical and social realities. Exploring materials and their subjectivity, her most recent works emphasize on gold and its representations. Focusing on gold as a universal embodiment of the dominant paradigm, she playfully distorts, breaks, and cracks open the preciosity of the material, unfolding frictions and asymmetries that are echoing the system it operates in.

Gloria Oyarzabal

Lives and works in Madrid, Spain

Education:
Master in Creation & Development of Photographic Projects at Blankpaper School of Photography, Madrid, 2014-2015
Graduated on Conservation & Restoration of Art, 1993
Bachelor of Fine Arts at Complutense University at Madrid, 1998

Gloria Oyarzabal diversifies her activity between film, photography and teaching. Co-founder and programmer at the independent cinema “La Enana Marrón” in Madrid (1999-2009), dedicated to the diffusion of author, experimental and alternative cinema.

In 2017 she's selected for the artist residence Ranchito Matadero Nigeria/South Africa between Madrid and Art House foundation Lagos (Nigeria) that ables her to develop her research around the colonisation of the concept of woman. Since 1996 working in the cinema world taking care of artistic direction and photography of experimental short films & documentaries.

Martin T Raggio

Born in New York, USA, based in Berlin, Germany

Education:
Media Arts, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, (UBA), 2014
EFTI (Master in Contemporary Photography), 2016

Martin plays with photography using the ¨real world¨ to make his own conceptual reality. As an Argentinian artist, born as a first generation American, his life has been split between the United States and Argentina, now based in Europe. Releasing a Photobook ¨Riverville¨ and now dedicated to work with analog large format. Martin’s statement ,,I play with photography using the ‘’real world’’ to make my own conceptual reality.’’

Cesare Reggiani

Lives and works in Faenza, Italy

After a long career in editorial illustration, from the early nineties, coinciding with the residency for part of the year in Paris, painting became the main artistic expression of the author. Since then Cesare Reggiani has held solo exhibitions in Italy, France, Holland, Germany, USA, Great Britain. Solitary figures of animals inhabit environments of an orderly nature. Line of horizon, mirrors of water, woods. Among these elements of a "mental" nature monumental and diaphanous architectural volumes.Through this "minimalist" composition, the artist tries to communicate a sense of timelessness, contemplation, wonder.

Reggiani works with a refined oil on canvas technique, spread in large bright and almost monochromatic backgrounds with an eye to Italian Renaissance art.

Géza Ricz

Born in Subotica, ex Yugoslavia, lives and works in Salzburg, Austria

Education:
Bachelor of Arts degree, University of Szeged, Hungary, 2011
Master of Arts degree, University of Szeged, Hungary, 2013

Ricz explores the borderline between figuration and abstraction. He aims to create harmonious compositions by using contrary sub-elements. The contrasts of naturalistic and geometrical, damaged and sterile, visible and hidden provide the essence of his imagery. The themes of his collage-like oil paintings are based on personal memories from his childhood in Eastern Europe, social, art historical and historical references. He creates collages that serve as the ground to his oil paintings. He is mixing details of old paintings, photographs, magazine cut-outs and personal memory fragments in order to build up his compositions.

Soji Shimizu

Born in Mie, Japan, lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
BFA, School of Art and Design, University of Tsukuba, Japan, 2008 - 2012
Graphic Design course, Tokyo Zokei University, Japan, 2004 - 2006

Soji Shimizu is interested in altering formats, structure, manners, and the process of paintings and exhibitions. He emphasizes a particular factor: color, material, meaning, relation between painting and viewer, that exists in his paintings. He also makes situations based on his beliefs and assumptions, developing works into installations.

Jürgen Sobkowiak

Born and based in Germany

His artistic repertoire ranges from avant-garde photography to collages up to the performative photography. He discovered his love for avant-garde photography by the American artist Francesca Woodman. In his works he explores the fragility and absurdity of human existence. The artist often appears himself in the pictorial space and brings his body into a whimsical relationship with the spatial conditions. This symbiosis of body, space and object creates a grotesque world. The meticulously planned compositions question not only the perception of reality, but reality itself. Jürgen Sobkowiak always works alone, uses daylight as the only source of light and designs the meticulously planned image structure according to idiosyncratic rules. In order to maintain authenticity, he does not use digital post-processing.

Astrid Verhoef

Fine Art Photographer based in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Education:
Arts Academy “Hoogeschool voor de Beeldende Kunsten Utrecht” 1998

Astrid stages scenes that verge on the surreal. Placing individuals and objects where they don’t seem to belong, moving the familiar into an unfamiliar landscape, her photographs seem to recontextualise normality. Juxtaposing human and object, she examines identity and emotion in relation to modern society versus natural spaces. Astrid’s work has been shown & published internationally, and is part of the collection of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts de Paris. Among others she has been awarded with Prix Jean Lariviere, Prix de la Photographie de Paris (PX3), B&W Spider awards, Life Framer, New York Photo Festival and New Dutch Photo Talent.

Jasna Vukos

Serbian born Canadian photographer and retoucher living in Toronto, Canada

Education:
Sapienza University Rome, Italy
Ongoing studies on Master degree in Digital Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

Jasna’s “cinematic” photos aim to illustrate the artificial nature of concepts "place" and "identity". They are not spontaneous and natural but are realized through the process that involves setting the stage, placing oneself in a non-place. Her work has been exhibited at Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto, at Serbian Heritage Academy of Canada, at MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma) in Rome. One of her photos was selected for 2019 Life Framer Editor's pick.

Cate Wind

Born in Durban, South Africa, lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education:
European Cultural Academy, Venice, Italy, 2019
Berlin Art Institute, Berlin, Germany, 2017
Visual Communication, Fachhochschule Aachen, Germany, 1987
Training glass and porcelain painter, Staatliche Glasfachschule Rheinbach, Germany, 1983

Cate Wind creates sculptures and installations that reveal correlations between modern knowledge and ancient systems of belief. Trained in the craftsmanship of glass, traditional painting, and visual communication, Wind assembles refined materials such as metal, glass, or resin with discarded found objects including gearwheels, vintage herbariums, or religious textiles. During her formative childhood in South Africa she developed a fascination with naturopathic medicine, voodoo, and ceremonial rituals. Energy and its transformation are constant topics in her work. Cate creates hybrid sculptures in which her interest in quantum mechanics and metaphysics as well as her research of folk medicine, ancient symbols and alternative healing practices interlock.

Elizabeth Withstandley

Lives and works in Los Angeles, California

Education:
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (BFA)
The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (MFA)

Elizabeth’s work is interdisciplinary including photography, film, video and installation art. She is one of the co-founders of Locust Projects a not-for-profit art space in Miami, Florida. Her work is rooted in conceptual art, taking the form of photographic series, film, video and installations that explore contemporary culture through some sort of narrative. The participants play a large role in the trajectory of each of her projects. Artifacts, individuality, and music are all central themes in Elizabeth’s work. The projects take on the form of artifacts by their simplification and classification, often times like relics from the natural history museum. The work questions individuality while presenting a portrait of a person, a group of people or a specific culture.